Class Actions: Clerics With Channel

I was poking around the Internet, looking for inspiration, when I inexplicably found myself at the d20 SRD page. I don’t go there very often because I don’t play Third Edition Dungeons & Dragons much, but something about looking over the cleric class tickled part of my brain. I thought about Fourth Edition’s Channel Divinity power, and Pathfinder’s Channel Energy power. Something clicked.

Now, in Norvendae, I have clerics synced up to the Cultures skill, and the power concept I have attached to them is “trade/edict.” Many Greek temples would have doubled as depositories of wealth, with the priests serving quite literally as clerks (which incidentally is derived from the word “cleric”), keeping track of the wealth.

Many temples would have also served as centers for trade. With wealth comes power, namely the power over that wealth, and those who control the wealth of the community, control the community. Er, anyway, it occurred to me that clerics have power that is invested in them — they wield power that is granted to them. In effect, they channel power, regardless of whether that power comes from a community or deity.

One of the problems I thought I might face with some of the classes is not knowing exactly how to translate their powers from one of the Seven States to another. But now that I’m thinking about the “cleric,” archetype, it should be clear: clerics channel. They channel the power of a community, or a feeling, a concept or deity, their ancestors, a cause, or a purpose. Clerics are a servant of whatever power they channel.

Important to note is the probability that clerics are more than just a servant to the power they channel, they’re likely a slave to it as well. Card powers geared toward shutting down the cleric will probably focus on “discrediting” the cleric in the eyes of whatever power they serve, or otherwise cutting them off from their source.